CNOOC lets contract for Huizhou refinery expansion

CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), has let a contract to Porvair Filtration Group Ltd. (PFG), Fareham, Hampshire, UK, to provide filtering equipment for a coal-to-substitute natural gas (SNG) gasification plant to be built at its 12 million-tonne/year Huizhou refinery in Guangdong Province, China.

PFG will supply the plant char filtration equipment, which will be used in areas downstream of the gasifier and heat exchanger to remove erosive and abrasive char particulates contained in syngas that has been produced from coal gasification before they can reach and potentially damage other downstream equipment and processes, PFG said.

PFG will deliver its scope of work under the contract to support the plant’s scheduled start-up in 2016, the company said.

A value of the contract was not disclosed.

Announcement of this latest contract follows China Resources & Transportation Group Ltd.’s (CRTG) Jan. 16 disclosure to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Ltd. that its indirectly owned subsidiary, Shenzhenshi Qianhai Zitong Clean Energy Co. Ltd., has entered an agreement with CNOOC to establish a joint venture for the investment, construction, and operation of a partial oxidation (POX) coal-to-hydrogen plant as part of CNOOC’s second phase refinery integration and expansion project at Huizhou.

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The POX coal-to-hydrogen plant will use coal and oxygen as feedstock to produce 150,000 tpy of hydrogen and 117,300 tpy of oxo-synthesis gas for use in the refinery as well as at a planned ethylene plant included in the Huizhou integration and expansion project, CRTG said.

In late 2013, CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals let a contract to Technip for the supply of its proprietary ethylene technology and process design package for a grassroots 1 million-tpy ethylene plant to be built as part of Huizhou’s phase-2 integration project, which China’s National Development and Reform Commission approved in May 2013 (OGJ Online, Dec. 20, 2013).

Both the Huizhou expansion, which would boost the refinery’s crude oil processing capacity by another 10 million tpy, and the associated ethylene plant are due to be commissioned sometime during 2016-17, according to the most recent updates from CNOOC.